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Which Garmin
My trusty Garmin 500 is on its way out and I need help deciding what to get next. Not being rude but please don't suggest Wahoo, Bryton etc as I am happy with Garmin.
I want to use navigation but can't decide between 530 and 830 - is the 830 touchscreen worth the extra expense?
Also, any views on Edge Explore? I haven't got a powermeter or cadence sensor so are the 530/830 not really worth the extra expense, or is the battery life of the Explore not as good?
TIA.
****UPDATE****
Thanks for all the advice I finally took the plunge and bought an 830 - managed to use my wife's NHS discount and got one for £260. Now to start plotting routes and downloading them😀
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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48 comments
Just bit the bullet after my 800 died on me on a ride I was leading on unfamiliar roads. Managed to resurrect it but it was clearly getting dimentia due to old age.
Set up the 830. More or less the same underlying functionality as the 800, inbuilt maps now rather than the joy of DIY OSM, and a lot of fluff features to disable, but soon got it set up as I liked it (one busy screen, a lap screen and a map screen with speed and lap average). The WiFi and Bluetooth certainly reduce the hassle of managing it.
50 mile ride used 12% of the battery without switching it off in the cafe - about 4 hours including being linked to the phone to do whatever it might do.
Whichever Garmin you choose I would purchase the remote, brilliant piece of kit that makes changing screens so much safer
I have had mine setup for an edge 1000 and my edge 1030, I believe it also works with the 530 and 830
Because reaching 10cm to the head unit is such a chore? I can't think of a case where you need this, if you are travelling in such a way that it's not safe to reach the head unit you probably shouldn't be fiddling with the gps at all.
Ah well if you don't need it, why would anyone else?
"I can't think of a case where [anyone would] need it" =/= "I don't need it". It is possible to try to consider use cases other than your own. Obviously, it possible that you may miss some, but then Secret_squirrel didn't claim that there were no cases - only that they couldn't think of any.
Reminds me of the remote control they gave me for my new Alpine car stereo in the 90's - I was like, 'really?'. I'd have been more likely to have an accident trying to find it than simply reach across to change station or cassette. I can appreciate that it would have been useful for passengers in the back but frankly anyone in the back can do one when it come to controlling the car stereo!
The same can be achieved with shimano di2, using buttons on the top of te hoods. except better because the bottons are where your hands naturally sit.
As far as I can tell the remote is designed to be attached to the handlebars (same as the garmin) So how is it different moving your hands to the remote, from moving your hand to the garmin?
Just anecdotally, I ruined the connector on my garmin 530 and Garmins customer service was, simply put, exemplary! Since then, I've heard the same from a couple of mates who've also had repairs or replacements and had to deal with Garmins CS. I wasn't a fanboy before I had a problem and frankly was preferring to maybe get a wahoo.. now however, from my experience, I'm an advocate of Garmin!
I brought the 530 not wanting to spend the extra on the touchscreen 830.. kinda wished I had, the buttons on the 530 are simply not intuitive and it feels like it was designed to be a touch screen. Saying that, you of course will get used to the buttons eventually, so... you pays your money and you makes your choices.
I haven't found that at all. I had previous 500s and I'm sure the buttons worked just the same.
I would agree with that. I went from a 500 to 520+ and the buttons are essentially the same. I don't think the 530 is any different.
I love my 520 plus, the navigation is excellent and the screen is clear and easy to read. Navigation counts down to turns with plenty of warning. You can create your own routes in Garmin Connect on a PC, and sync them in a flash from the Garmin Connect app on your phone. Texts from my beloved appear on the screen as I'm riding (yes, I like that feature :-*. All in all, a bit of a learning curve to start with, but it's been a great experience and leads me along routes I'd never have been able to find otherwise.
Yes, the rerouting is a bit slow, but frustratingly it's always right when it tells me to make a u-turn
DCR was fairly impressed with the Sigma Rox 12.0 when it came out. I wonder if anyone here is using one and how yo've found it. Also, are there any rumours of a upgraded Rox?
I'd take a look at the Hammerhead Karoo II if you have the budget. It's on a different level to the Garmins you're considering, though a bit bigger. I've found the touchscreens on the Garmins I've owned less than reliable...and the screen / map resolution less than adequate. With the HKII you get iPhone level resolution....
Hammerhead would also trade in the OP's G500 for £45 - not sure if the OP would consider that as value or not...
The amount of time I've had my 500 - yes I would
But I do like Garmin as I've had no problems with it.
I've got the 530, before that had a 520, impressed at the OP keping a 500 going so long.
I've found the 530 to be very much better than the 510 and 520. I avoided te 800 prefering a system which would still work in the wet (touchscreens are generally bad when covered in water) and also for the longer battery life.
You have to decide if you prefer the better graphics and larger screen of the 830, 530 really does everythin I want it to, reliably and for a long time.
I have recently found routes that i personally create on strava seem to find themselves on my my garmin with no intervention, but befoe that I never had an issue with dropping gpx files onto the unit by connecting to PC, which seems to differ from the alchemy involved with wahoo, although wahoo ehtusiasts say this isnt the case.
Never had a problem with my 800 in the rain, though I do have a screen saver layer on it.
It's about 8 or 9 years old. The battery on my original started given up after about 6 hours, but this similar aged replacement which hasn't been used since 2014 is now doing its job (aside from a weird software glitch where displaying turns out randomly pops up another turn).
I'm not sure I'd trust the Hammerhead to be working in 10 years time from my experience with Android device obsolescence.
not sure that's entirely fair though time will tell. The hammerhead is still getting updates even though it's 4 years old. It's not really comparable to a cheap android phone.
That's down to what Hammerhead choose to do. Android obsolescence exists because most phone makers are on a constant cycle of updating their handsets and are actively looking to persuade customers to upgrade every couple of years.
One way of doing that is to minimise the hardware specifications so that the current and next version of Android will happily run on it, but the one after that will struggle ... or just not offer more than one OS update for a particular phone forcing your average customer to buy a new phone to obtain the up to date version.
That is not what Hammerhead is doing.
On top of which, the OS on the Karoo is based on the Android kernel but highly specialised for the devices.
Can't add anything to the advice - I will be devastated if/when my old 500 gives up the ghost!
Everything still works okay it's just that the battery life has started to plummet - a 4 hour ride now uses about 75% of the battery
Mine reached that stage ... I just kept a power bank in my gel bag on the crossbar and plugged it in if I needed to.
I used an 800 for years very happily until the on-off button broke. (To be fair I'd covered many tens of thousands of miles with it). I couldn't decide between a 530 and an 830, but I did use the touch screen quite a lot, and so went for the 830. I've enjoyed using it very much, there's lots of data (I do have a power meter) and the navigation works very well.
Forgive me if you know this site already - but I think this guy does really useful reviews for all kinds of electronics, he is a triathlete but seems to have a very fair and balanced approach to assessing devices. here is is guide to cycling gps units
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2021/11/best-cycling-gps-computers-recommendations.html
Agreed. DC Rainmaker and the Quantified Scientist channels on YouTube are very good on equipment. QS is mainly smartwatches.
I have a similar dilemma. Want a better navigation device than my Lezyne Mega XL. Stuck between 530,830 and Hammerhead 2. Reason the Hammerhead sneaks in is I've seen multiple reviews stating the auto rerouting sucks on the Garmins.
Anyone care to comment?
Can't comment on Garmin's rerouting (beyond the fact that it was one of the reasons I sent a Garmin unit back as not fit for purpose) but I've found the Karoo 2's rerouting to be impeccable, and it occurs in almost real time.
I can echo this too. The rerouting on the Garmin is terrible. Just keeps telling you to 'make a u turn' The battry life on the 830 is incredible though and generally very relaible. I swapped in for a Karoo 2 a few months ago and aside from the shorter battery life its much better for my needs as I use the navigation a lot.
Also you have the option to use the buttons or touch to move the data screens when riding which is great.
Yes it seems to want to take you back to the last place you were on route, rather than directing to the nearest place you could get back on route.
It's a bit of a dilema - have turn by turn instructions set to on, and get annoying directions when you are knowingly detouring from route
OR
have turn by turn off and don't get any warning of an upcoming turn.
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